Seraphine

The next day.

Scattered engine noises broke the stillness of dawn, and the whole city gradually woke beneath the rising sun.

The Zaunite Apprentices had finally gotten off their night shifts and could go home to sleep.

Like a swarm of exhausted ants, they slowly streamed out of the factory.

The small vendors from Zaun had been waiting outside the factory gates since early morning, setting up breakfast stalls that clustered like flies.

They sold cheap food that no local Piltovan would even spare a glance for: Bog Toads, sewer rats, stinking cheese sandwiches, bread fried in recycled oil. The point was simple—big portions, filling meals, enough calories.

Li Wei picked through the offerings and ultimately chose the cheapest, most durable option: a chunk of dark bread.

Then, like his coworkers, he gathered with a few others, found an empty spot by the curb, and sat down to eat and chat while breathing in the fresh exhaust from the road.

"Li Wei, quit eating that garbage! The dark bread here is harder than rocks. Is that even fit for human consumption?"

Li Wei had barely sat down when someone patted him on the shoulder from behind.

He turned around and saw Baku, his monkey-thin coworker and fellow Zaunite.

"Fuck off! Who are you calling inhuman?" Li Wei took it as a joke. "If dark bread is so bad, then treat me to something better!"

"I will." This guy, who had been notoriously stingy in the original owner's memories, agreed without the slightest hesitation.

Baku then actually sat down beside Li Wei and waved a steaming soft sandwich in front of him.

"Holy shit, with egg and ham too?!"

Li Wei was genuinely stunned by such a lavish meal.

A sandwich made with soft toast, with egg and ham inside.

The moment it appeared in Baku's hand, the looks from the people around them visibly changed.

"You're really treating me? Did you take the wrong medicine or something?" Li Wei eyed Baku's head suspiciously.

"Pah! I'm feeding you, and you still have so much to say." Baku cursed at him with a grin. "Just take it when someone treats you. Besides, we probably won't get another chance to eat breakfast together like this."

As he laughed, he gradually stopped being able to laugh.

"Say, Li Wei." Baku forcefully shoved the egg-and-meat sandwich into Li Wei's hands, then snatched away his dark bread and viciously bit into it.

"Why the fuck didn't you tell us that you borrowed usury from those bastards?"

"Now they've come looking for you at the factory. Even Mr. Ervin won't be able to protect you!"

"..." Li Wei fell silent.

He knew why Baku had suddenly become so emotional.

In the world of Zaunite Apprentices, anyone who got tangled up with the usurious loans of the Zaunite Gangs was basically finished.

As far as Baku was concerned, once Li Wei left today, he would probably never be able to return to work at the factory.

"Don't worry. I have a way."

"Don't give me that bullshit! What fucking way could you possibly have? When have those dogfucking bastards ever gone easy on anyone? If you can't repay their usury, what happens to you will be worse than death!" Baku could not help but curse furiously.

Then he continued talking to himself. "Li Wei, are you fucking stupid? Why are you still coming to work at a time like this? Pack your things and take your sister back to Zaun!"

"At least you can hide from those assholes in Zaun. Otherwise—"

"I know, I know." Li Wei echoed him with complicated feelings.

He knew he could not persuade Baku to believe that he could still turn things around.

So Li Wei could only promise him, "I'll go back to Zaun in the next couple of days. Don't worry."

"Mm." Baku lowered his head and took another bite of the dark bread. This time, he chewed hard for a long while before speaking again. "Be careful even if you go back to Zaun. Don't die there."

"Anyway, stay alive. Maybe once I get Piltover citizenship someday, I'll have a chance to bring you all to Piltover too."

"Pah, what kind of dream are you having?" This time, Li Wei was certain that Baku was joking again.

Official Piltover citizenship was not so easy to obtain. Even if he somehow got it, there was no way he could bring people over from Zaun.

The threshold for legally immigrating from Zaun to Piltover was extremely high, and the cost was enormous. Let alone Zaunites, even ordinary Piltovan families could not afford that sum.

"Well..." Baku actually gave it some serious thought. "I have a way."

"Once I'm a Piltovan, I can adopt you as my son and marry your sister. I'll call you brother-in-law, and you'll call me Dad. We'll use the family immigration route, so it'll cost less."

Li Wei: "..."

"Fuck your mother!"

Across the road, beside the factory, stood a garden villa with its own private courtyard.

This was the home of the factory owner, Mr. Ervin.

He was having breakfast with his wife, while his precious daughter sat beside them.

The girl looked only sixteen or seventeen. Her cherry lips were thin, her nose high and delicate, and her large sapphire-blue eyes shimmered as though they could speak. Long, silky pink hair cascaded over her shoulders, making her milk-pale skin appear even smoother and brighter.

Paired with her princess-like, ornate dress, she looked utterly unlike anyone else around her.

As though she had somehow traveled here from a luxury home in a modern metropolis to star in some hardship reality show.

"Ah, ah, open wide. Be good~ Time for breakfast."

The girl held up a tender Tuna Slice on her fork and lovingly fed the pet cat in her arms.

But the fat cat merely sprawled lazily in her lap, too lazy even to open its mouth.

"Enough, Seraphine!"

Mr. Ervin put down his newspaper and called his daughter's name in annoyance.

"That cat is practically a pig because of you—stop feeding it and eat your own breakfast first!"

"You're already this old, and you still need to be taught how to eat."

"Yes, Dad~" Seraphine stuck out her tongue playfully before finally setting down the fat cat, which had long since eaten its fill.

The two maids waiting nearby immediately stepped forward. One took the cat from her arms to care for it, while the other removed the half-plate of remaining tuna and took it back to the kitchen to throw away.

As for Seraphine, she reluctantly picked up her knife and fork, hesitating as she picked between the quinoa chicken salad, oil-free scrambled eggs, black forest smoked ham, and caviar hand-rolled sushi before her.

In the end, she only picked at a few bites of chicken breast and vegetable salad before listlessly putting down her utensils.

"You child... Eat a little more!"

"Look at you. You've gotten so thin."

Mrs. Erwin scolded her daughter with concern, but Seraphine merely rubbed the corners of her eyes wearily.

"Sorry, Mom. I didn't sleep well last night, so I really don't have much of an appetite."

"This..." The Erwins both turned nervous. "Seraphine, did you hear those 'voices' again?"

"Mm." Seraphine nodded wearily.

She had been born with the special ability to listen to the Soul Voice, allowing her to hear the "melodies" of other people's souls.

This magical gift, similar to mind-reading but far more mysterious in nature, should undoubtedly have been the greatest gift heaven had given her.

Unfortunately, Seraphine had no ability to control her gift.

So that gift had instead become a curse.

She could always hear the soul melodies of those around her against her will. Yet those melodies were neither elegant nor rhythmic. Instead, they were filled with darkness and pain, with heaviness and torment.

That chaotic noise constantly tortured Seraphine, until she gradually became too afraid even to leave the house. The more people she saw, the more painful melodies she heard.

Yet even though she hid at home day and night like this, those voices still clung to her like shadows.

"Sigh..." Seeing that her daughter could barely sleep properly, Mrs. Erwin's heart ached terribly.

She could not help looking at her husband. "Honey, how is that method you mentioned before coming along?"

"You mean the Hextech Auditory Dampener?"

"It still hasn't been developed successfully. The arcane energy density of Artificial Hextech Gems is insufficient, so they can never properly power the device. I'm still researching how to solve that problem."

"What is there to research?" Mrs. Erwin frowned. "If it's a problem with arcane energy density, then if Artificial Hextech Gems won't work, just try Natural Hextech Gems."

"It's not something we can just try on a whim." Mr. Ervin sighed. "Honey, it's not like you don't know what Natural Hextech Gems are."

"They're so expensive that they're practically unavailable at any price! We worked hard for half our lives just to open this small factory. If we really bought one, we'd probably have to throw the entire factory into it."

"Then throw it in!"

"Is your factory more important than our daughter?"

"I..." Mr. Ervin looked pained. "Don't we need to think about it a little more?"

"Think about what? Didn't we fight desperately to stay in Piltover so Nini could live a good life here? But now she suffers every day and can't even leave the house. What use is all this money?"

"You can't put it like that. How is money useless? Haven't we suffered enough from being poor during the first half of our lives?"

Though they had been wealthy for more than ten years now, whenever he thought of the past, he still could not stop himself from wanting to cry.

Whenever he dreamed of those days in the middle of the night, he would wake to find even his pillow soaked.

"Poverty is the hardest disease to cure." Ervin smiled bitterly.

"Pah!" His wife saw things differently. "You stingy old bastard, you only remember your own 'disease'! What about our daughter?"

"Do you want money, or do you want Seraphine?"

"I-I just want to wait a little longer. Our sound system business is getting more and more prosperous. Even Noxian nobles have started coming to Piltover to place orders with us. I want to take one more gamble. If we can expand the factory over the next two years and earn more money, then we'll be able to afford a Natural Hextech Crystal!"

"Oh, screw you! We can afford one right now! You old bastard, you just want money and not your daughter!"

As the couple argued, they even slipped into the Zaunite dialect they had not spoken in years.

"Dad, Mom, stop fighting!"

Seraphine tried her best to mediate, but it did little good.

In the end, it was only when her body suddenly trembled for some reason and she clutched her head that her parents, who had nearly come to blows, finally calmed down.

"Nini!" The couple hurriedly gathered around her. "What's wrong? Did you hear those 'voices' again?"

"Mm..." Seraphine covered her head in pain.

Her gift had activated beyond her control again.

Countless Soul Voices converged from every direction. Some came from the factory, some from the streets, some from the more distant harbor, shops, and apartment buildings...

Some were happy, some were joyful, but far more were heavy.

"Sigh!" Mrs. Erwin glared at her husband irritably. "What are you standing there for? Hurry up and play some music!"

Beautiful music could ease Seraphine's symptoms and help lessen her pain.

That was also one of the reasons she loved music.

"Wait—" Just as the couple anxiously prepared to help ease her pain, Seraphine suddenly raised her head.

"What is it?" they asked worriedly.

"I hear singing."

"Singing?" They had not even played any music yet.

"Yes, there's singing!"

Seraphine suddenly stared out the window in a daze.

"Over there, right over there!"

She excitedly walked to the window and yanked open the curtains.

"There's a very special soul over there—"

"His soul is singing!"

"It's singing a song I've never heard before!"